


That One Where They Both Have Amnesia

by igrockspock



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-27
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-15 03:33:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that the world is safe from the alien apocalypse, Nick Fury and Maria Hill only have one problem: they can't remember who they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That One Where They Both Have Amnesia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redbrunja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrunja/gifts).



Maria is the first to wake up. She doesn't actually know her name is Maria, at least, not at first, but the ID card in her pants pocket told her so. She thinks she must be a very practical person; she'd reached for the card straightaway, even though she technically had no reason to think it would be there. Tentatively, she runs her hands over her clothing, which seems to be a black leather catsuit. So, her name is Maria and she's a practical woman who wears leather catsuits in her kitchen. Something about that is contradictory.

A man is sitting up on the other end of the room, and when Maria sees him, she stifles a gasp. He's wearing an eyepatch, and the edges of a jagged scar peek out around the rim. Automatically, her hand darts to her hip and brushes against an empty holster. That's scary on two counts: she carries a gun, and its missing. Maybe the man had taken it. She reaches up, and her fingers close around the handle of a heavy skillet.

"If you move, I _will_ kill you," she says, pulling herself to her feet and hefting the skillet experimentally. She thinks, maybe, she is the kind of woman who could kill a man with a skillet.

The man holds up his hands, pleading.

"Did you take my gun?" she snaps, her fingers curling around the skillet's handle. 

"Please. I don't even know who you are." He has a very nice voice, she thinks.

"Do you know who _you_ are?" Maria asks.

The man tilts his head. "No, now that you mention it, I don't think I do."

Maria puts the skillet back on the stove and leans against the counter. "I guess we're in the same boat then. I was hoping maybe you could tell me who I am."

"A dominatrix?" 

" _Hey_."

The man holds up his hands again, like he had when she was threatening him with the skillet. "It fits," he says placidly. "Look at what you're wearing. And you seem to like dominating people."

"In the kitchen?" she snaps. "Not unless you have some kind of weird fetish."

"Alright, alright, you're just a woman who happens to like wearing extremely tight black clothing while threatening people." The man is getting to his feet, and Maria reaches out to help him up. Funny how the gesture feels instinctive.

"I think we know each other," she says slowly.

"Yeah, I think we must have known each other for a long time," he says. She notices that he's slow to release her hand.

Maria studies him frankly. He's strange, with the eye patch and the dramatic leather coat, but then, she isn't exactly normal either. Actually, now that she thinks about it, he looks like he could be attractive, if she's the sort of woman who could forget about a missing eye. And hey, maybe she is. Maybe she is Maria Hill who has a gun and wears leather and sleeps with dangerous looking men.

There are two tumblers on the counter, half-filled with amber liquid, and the man is squinting at them suspiciously. He picks one of them up and sniffs it.

"I think you drugged me," he says.

Maria snorts. "And then drugged myself? _Please._ "

"I didn't say you were _good_ at drugging people. Maybe you took a drink from my glass by mistake."

"Yeah, right." She shakes her head. "I can't believe I actually thought we were having a moment there."

The man is reaching toward his hip, and Maria snatches up the skillet again without even thinking. But his holster is empty too. Their eyes lock instantly.

"Your gun's gone too," she says.

"Someone else took them." He lowers his voice, and his eyes flit toward the kitchen door. Maria understands what he means: maybe that someone else is still here, in the apartment. She nods toward the butcher block at the end of the counter, and they both pick up a knife.

Together, they search the apartment, kicking doors open and entering each room back to back. When they reach the bedroom, they look at each other and nod. It's the last room; whoever took their guns is inside, and well-armed, but there's no question they're going in. The man holds up one finger, then two. At three, they kick in the door and rush inside. But no one is there -- no one except them, standing close together and panting.

"We do this a lot together," Maria says. It feels truer than anything else she knows, even her name.

"We're a good team," the man says, and Maria is certain that's true too. 

They stand together in silence for a moment, and then the man says softly, "You're hurt." He reaches toward her face, and when Maria doesn't back away, he gingerly strokes the bruised spot beneath her eye. Suddenly, Maria is acutely aware that they're standing in a bedroom -- hers, by the looks of it -- and falling into bed with this man seems like the easiest thing in the world. Tentatively, she lays her hand over his, and he cups her face, his thumb slowly stroking her cheek.

Outside, in the living room, a door creaks. They spring apart, knives ready.

"Agent Hill? Director Fury?" a voice calls. "Are you alright?"

A man and woman in plain black suits appear in the hallway. Both of them stand at attention, as if they're ready to deliver a report.

"Sirs, we apologize, but the prisoner Loki was able to release some sort of amnesia spell. If you could accompany us to SHIELD, we have the cure."

***

Maria wakes up in medical with a crick in her neck.

"How long was I out?" she asks the nurse.

"Six hours, sir. Side effect of the drug."

"And Director Fury?"

"The same, sir. I believe he's waking up now."

Maria nods, memories of the night before flooding back: the Hulk raging through the helicarrier, the grenade on the bridge. Phil. The nuke. She'd been so tired, afterward. They both had been. Neither of them could say it, but neither of them could stand to be alone, so they'd walked back to her apartment together. And afterward, when they'd lost their memories, they'd almost -- 

She steps out into the hallway, and Fury is there. She can feel the heat rising to her cheeks.

He swallows. "Agent."

She nods. "Director."

They turn, walking down the hallway in opposite directions. They'll manage to forget this, Maria knows. In their years together, their relationship has survived far worse. 

She opens the door to her office and mutters a disconsolate "fuck" at the sight of her desk. The world almost ended, and somehow SHIELD kept generating paperwork, right through the alien apocalypse. She'd kill Fury for pulling her out of the field except that his murder would only generate more forms.

"Fuck," she mutters again when she sees the neat stack of Captain America trading cards next to her computer. Phil's, of course. She'd picked them up after the others had left. Perching on the edge of her desk, she jams her hands against her eyes. Thoughts are crowding in too fast, about doing what has to be done, about life being short and not giving second chances. She thinks about that moment, in front of her bed, when she hadn't known who she was but she still felt as if she knew everything there was to know about Nick Fury. The world had felt so peaceful then.

She gives herself one last, angry _fuck_ before she sets off down the hall. Fury's door opens when she scans her thumb. It always does; she's the only one he never shuts out. She leans against the wall and listens to the door lock behind her.

"Agent Hill?" he asks, and she decides not to debate with herself about whether there's something different in his voice.

"My name is Maria," she says. She looks at his good eye and smiles crookedly. "And you and I both know we have unfinished business, Nick."


End file.
